Chapter 24
I found Christopher alone in the computer lab before first period the next morning. I supposed I could have waited for lunch to bring my new laptop to him, but I knew I wouldn’t last that long. When you realize you need to make a connection with someone, you know you have to do it as soon as possible, or you’ll lose the courage to do it at all. And this was the only way I could think to do it. ‘Um, hi,’ I said gently, careful not to startle him in the middle of whatever video game he was engrossed in (Madden NFL again, I saw a minute later). He turned in his computer chair and stared. Lulu had dressed me again, though I was getting better at doing it myself. This time I was in skinny jeans, velvet flats, a maroon cropped velvet jacket, and so many necklaces I rattled when I walked. I had only just talked Lulu out of adding a beret. That, I felt, was taking things one step too far. I was a little bit proud of my independent fashion streak. ‘Hi,’ he said without smiling. He had on another short-sleeved polo shirt, this one grey. His hair was still wet at the back from his morning shower. He looked so good I wanted to die. ‘I brought my computer,’ I said, pulling the white laptop from my Marc Jacobs tote. ‘You said yesterday you could set up my email account for me . . . is this a good time?’ Christopher glanced at the wall-clock. We had fifteen minutes until Public Speaking. ‘I guess so,’ he said, and held out his hand for the computer. Hmmm. If he had ‘pushed his love’ for me ‘way, way down’, as Lulu had suggested, he had really pushed it down. Why couldn’t I summon up some of Lulu’s awesome aimless chatter and set him at his ease? She was so good at it, while I was as awkward at it as . . . well, a gawky teen tomboy whose brain had been stuck in a supermodel’s body. I handed Christopher my laptop and went to sit in the chair beside his. He looked down at the gleaming – and obviously brand new – white computer without comment, opened it and began typing away. I tried to remember what Lulu had told me. Have confidence and . . . what? Make a connection. Right. Only how? What did Christopher and Nikki Howard have in common? Nothing. Except that they both went to Tribeca Alternative High School. Oh . . . and Journeyquest. Right. ‘So what was your high score?’ I asked him. ‘On Journeyquest?’ ‘Forty-eight,’ he said without elaboration. This shocked me. I blurted, without thinking, ‘You’re a liar. ’ He glanced at me, startled. ‘What?’ ‘No way did you make it past level forty-six,’ I said, completely forgetting there wasn’t any way I could know this. ‘How did you make it past the Dragons of Pith?’ The dragons had incinerated our characters every time we’d approached them, no matter which direction we came from, barring us from making it past level forty-six. We’d searched the web for clues as to how to get past them, to no avail. Christopher was staring at me. For the first time, he really seemed to be seeing me. ‘I used the Runes of Al-Cragen,’ he explained simply. It was my turn to stare. ‘The runes? No kidding? Oh my God, I can’t believe I never thought of that. So you just threw them and—’ ‘The dragons were powerless in their lair,’ Christopher said. He was really looking at me now. But not like he was actually seeing me, Em. More like he was wondering what was wrong with me, Nikki. Which made sense actually. Because what kind of lunatic would look at Nikki Howard and suspect Em Watts was inside her? ‘What was your character’s name? Your Journeyquest character? Maybe I’ve seen you online. ’ And I realized I’d made a blunder. I couldn’t give him my online character’s name, because then he’d know it was me, Em. But I couldn’t just make one up either, because it would be too easy for him to check. ‘Oh,’ I said breezily ‘I haven’t been online in ages. And I doubt you’d ever have seen me, I keep really weird hours. Besides, I don’t remember it. ’ I tapped my head. ‘You know. The amnesia thing. ’ He gave me a sceptical look and turned back to my computer screen. ‘Um, yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure. ’ Then suddenly he turned and threw me a look that was like someone accidentally pouring a glass of cold water in my face. ‘But you remembered you played,’ he said. I could have kicked myself. ‘Y-yeah, amnesia is weird that w-way’ I stammered. ‘Like, I remember some things. But not others. Like . . . ’ And then, just like that, I said it. I don’t know why. It was risky. It was probably foolish. It was exactly the sort of thing, I realized, that Stark Enterprises had been using tracking software to find. This was why it had been installed on Nikki and Lulu’s computers in the first place. This was why Stark Enterprises had been so generous with my family with the free cellphones. To make sure we weren’t gabbing to the wrong people about my secret surgery. But I wasn’t typing what I was about to say, or saying it into a Stark-brand cellphone. ‘ . . . I remember you,’ I told him. Suddenly my heart began to hammer. Yet I couldn’t seem to shut myself up. It was like my mouth was just running away with itself. But Lulu had said to make a connection. This wasn’t the one I’d had in mind. But there it was. ‘From that day at the Stark Megastore grand opening,’ I went on. Nothing happened. I waited. But no men in black suits burst the door down. No one with guns came busting through the ceiling panels. We were safe. Christopher just stared at me, his blue eyes – so different from Gabriel’s, more green around the edges, and rimmed with light brown lashes instead of dark – wide and incredulous. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t know where I was going with this either. Shut up, Em, my brain directed my mouth. Or Nikki’s mouth. Or whatever your name is now. Just shut up. Two million dollars. Two million dollars. But it was no good. The damage was done. ‘You remember what happened that day?’ Christopher asked finally. I looked down at my hands. My fingernails – which were fake, and still painted black – were perfect. Just like the rest of me. On the outside. Too bad no one could see that on the inside, I was a big old mess. ‘I remember you,’ I said. ‘I remember how you came with your friend. The one who . . . died. ’ When I said the word died, Christopher looked quickly away from me. His fingers were frozen on the keyboard of my laptop. But it was too late to turn back. I could only move forward. ‘That must have been so awful,’ I said, my heart twisting for him. ‘I mean . . . not like you probably want to remember it or anything. I’m sorry to have brought it up. I just . . . I wanted to say something to you about it when no one else was around. You know, to tell you how badly I felt about it. ’ I had no idea if Frida was right about what was troubling Christopher. About him having been in love with me, I mean. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just still recovering from having seen a girl die right in front of him. Anybody would have been messed up from that. Maybe Frida was completely wrong about Christopher having had any special feelings beyond friendship for me. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell by looking at his face, because he was keeping it turned away from me, just staring at my computer screen. ‘I’m just so, so sorry that that happened,’ I went on. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. What happened was terrible. You must . . . you must miss her a lot. ’ I waited, thinking he wasn’t going to reply at all, he didn’t say anything for so long. But then he did. He said, ‘Yeah. ’ And then his fingers started moving over the keyboard again. A minute after that, he said, ‘Well, here you go. You’re all set. ’ And he closed my laptop, and handed it back to me. Just like that. I felt my eyes fill with tears. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t believe Lulu was wrong. It wasn’t that I’d believed her stupid theory, exactly. I mean, how dumb would you have to be to believe that all the boys in the world are a little bit in love with you? Sure, maybe it’s true for Lulu. But why would Christopher ever have been in love with me? God, I couldn’t believe how asinine I’d been. I turned around and stuffed the laptop back into my tote, wiping the tears away with my sleeve so he couldn’t see that I was crying. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Well. See you in Public Speaking. ’ I was halfway out the door when Christopher’s quiet voice stopped me in my tracks. ‘Nikki,’ he said. I froze. I couldn’t turn around, because then he’d have seen the tears that had escaped from beneath my eyelids, and were trickling down my cheeks. ‘Uh-huh?’ I said, to the wall. His voice was still qu
iet. ‘She was my best friend,’ he said. The tears came gushing down my face, which I still kept hidden from him. Suddenly I wanted to tell him the truth so, so badly. I wanted to run over to him, throw down my bag and fling my arms around him and say, ‘Christopher, it’s me! Em! I’m not dead! I’m in here! I know it’s crazy, but it’s true!’ But I knew I couldn’t. Two million dollars. Instead I turned around, not caring any more if he saw I was crying, and did the one thing I knew I shouldn’t – but that I also knew I had to – do. The thing I told myself I was crazy to do. The thing I’d tried to talk myself out of doing all morning, since I’d thought of it, and that I would have left without doing, if he hadn’t just said those five little words. I reached into my tote, pulled something out of it, turned around, walked back over to him and slapped it down in front of him. Then I turned and ran before he could ask me why I’d just dropped a sheet of glow-in-the-dark dinosaur stickers on his desk.